


Things I Didn't Know

by Briony



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Rats, Tumblr: promptsinpanem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-01
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-20 17:16:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3658608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briony/pseuds/Briony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post MJ/Pre-Epilogue </p><p>Peeta and Katniss struggle with their past and how they choose to let it affect their future.<br/>Written for the Dreameverlark Prompts in Panem</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things I Didn't Know

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2. Rats
> 
> So I go to bed and, sure enough, within a few hours I awake from a nightmare where that old woman from District 4 transforms into a large rodent and gnaws on my face. I know I was screaming, but no one comes. Not Peeta, not even one of the Capitol attendants.
> 
> Injury, deceit, death— Katniss and Peeta are no strangers to these concepts, whether during the games, the war or even their lives before the reaping. This is exactly what the imagery of rats within dreams invokes. Use these prominent themes from the books to showcase Everlark battling with betrayal or illness.
> 
> *Explicit Sexual Content and Mention of Torture

"The bakery has rats." Peeta announces tersely as we stand together doing dishes at the sink. I look over at his face and take note of the tightness of his face, the subtle clenching of his jaw and the short and agitated way he is drying the dishes I hand to him. I consider my reaction carefully, before deciding on silence.

After six years together, I've learned that talking rarely helps in these situations. When Peeta is in one of his moods and can't seem to figure out what he wants to say or needs to do to calm down, its better not to push. To give him space to sort through his emotions Dr. Aurelius had told me. We finish cleaning the kitchen together in silence until there's nothing left to do and we're face to face. I can tell by the irritated look on Peeta's face that he knows I'm waiting for him to make a decision.

On good days, he'll let the anger go, his rigid and cold posture melting back into the strong and steady warmth I so love about him. He'll wrap me in that warmth, apologize, kiss me tenderly, and we'll talk about what's wrong. Other times I'll find myself pushed suddenly up against the wall or onto the bed with his body pressed against mine. His mouth and hands hot and insistent as they roam greedily down my neck, across my breasts, along my stomach and down until he finds the place he knows will unravel me. Until I am practically begging him to lose his anger and himself with me in the ecstasy of our flesh.

I am fine with either of these. Whether he finds comfort in my words or my body doesn't matter to me as long as it wipes the anger and pain away from his eyes. As long as it returns to me that kind and gentle boy that slipped his way into my heart not once, but twice.

On the bad days though, he'll lock himself away in his studio choosing to deal with his pain on his own by turning his anguish into something dark and beautiful on canvas. And I hate it when he does this. I hate it when he shuts me out, when he denies me his presence, when he doesn't trust me with his pain. I hate it because I know that I'm part of the reason its there in the first place.

"I'm going to go paint." Peeta says brusquely and I can feel the disappointment and hurt twist in my stomach, taste it in my throat as he turns and walks past me. I follow him meekly to the guest room that we turned into his studio, hovering at the doorway, knowing that I'm not allowed nor welcome inside. Peeta turns to face me. He's not mean enough to shut the door in my face, but I know he wants me to leave him alone. I reach my arm out to his.

"Are you mad at me?" I ask. Hoping to somehow bring him back to me. To get him to let me in emotionally before he quite literally shuts me out. I see a flicker of remorse in his eyes and he deflates slightly before running his hand across his face tiredly.

"No." He says pausing before adding shortly. "Maybe a little. I don't know." I wait for him to say more but he only leans in and gives me an obligatory kiss before saying, "Don't wait up." I nod and he shuts the door. The click of the lock like the pain of an old wound that won't heal, familiar and deep.

It wasn't always like this. During those first few years after the war he had returned to me almost his old self. Gentle, strong, devoted. I anchored onto him and pulled myself through my grief, only to fall helplessly and hopelessly in love. But It took me opening up my heart to Peeta to realize how much of his own he kept hidden. The revelation stung and I wanted him to show it to me. I wanted every piece of him.

But Peeta is the master of deflection and I never stood a chance. He overwhelmed me with his passion. All those years of longing and lust he kept so tightly controlled were finally released and crashed over me in waves. Drowning me in the pleasures I never thought possible. His words of love and devotion no longer censored wrapped me up in a cocoon of warmth and safety. I was so distracted I soon began to forget about those hidden parts, and I probably would have if it hadn't been for the flashbacks.

At first he tried to hide them. When that didn't work he tried to brush them off as no big deal. He didn't want me to worry about it. He didn't want to talk about it. Everything was fine Katniss, but it wasn't. The more I pushed for him to open up about them the angrier he became, and his rejection hurt, more so because it wasn't undeserved.

Betrayal. I think about betrayal and I think about my mother's vacant face and Prim's gaunt cheeks. But I have nothing on betrayal when it comes to Peeta. It had started with his mother, and had been compounded by his father. After that it seems Peeta's life was just a litany of betrayals of which I contributed many if not most, but none so reprehensible as that time I abandoned him in District 13. When he needed me I left him.

The burden of it weighs heavily on me, but I don't know how to fix what I've done. I try to make it up to him with my love and affection. I try to give him space. I try to be respectful of his wishes to be alone, but I worry that this anger and resentment will fester and grow out of hand into something I can't stop. I'm terrified of everything falling apart.

It's well past midnight when Peeta finally leaves his studio. I hear him climb up the stairs and into the dark bedroom where I have been lying sleepless for some time. The bathroom light clicks on and I am soon focusing on the steady hiss of the shower as I try to soothe my mounting anxiety. Wondering if he will hold me and let me in or if he will simply fall asleep beside me. I sigh when he slides into bed, sidles up to my back and pulls me into his arms.

"You're still awake?" He asks and I nod. He nuzzles my neck before moving my hair and covering me with soft warm kisses. I shiver at his touch, exposing my neck for more as each press of his lips causes a pleasurable tightness to coil in my belly. His hand moves seamlessly under my shirt to cup my breast kneading gently as he continues to kiss a path up my neck and around my ear. When I moan softly in response, I can feel him harden slightly against my back.

I know what this is. His fingers, drifting languidly down from my breast, gliding down my stomach, causing my skin to tingle in their wake and my muscles to tighten in anticipation, are an an apology. For what I don't entirely know. For shutting me out maybe. For not being able to trust me enough. I can't say I feel very deserving, but I let him continue anyways. He has always loved giving me pleasure and I won't deny him that. 

He slides underneath the waistband of my panties and covers my mound with his large hand before slowly and deliberately opening my folds. His fingers move along me thoroughly in long intentional strokes spreading the ever increasing moisture until I am slick underneath him. My breathing is becoming ragged and I can begin to feel my legs tremor slightly as he begins to tease around my bud.

"Do you want my fingers inside of you?" He asks and the hot moist air so close to my ear sends me over the edge. I grind my backside into his hardness and he grunts in response before pushing two fingers deep inside of me. I groan loudly as they slide into me and whimper as his thumb begins working my clit. His fingers curl inside of me and I begin moving in rhythm with him moaning and gasping with each thrust. It doesn't take long until I am crashing down and clenching around him.

I can feel his smile against my neck as he continues his soft kisses. I lay there breathless for a moment before I roll onto my back surprising him with my sudden movement. He removes his hand from me and I swiftly slide off my pants and begin pulling at his. He looks at me with amusement, I'm not usually this forward, but I want him to come inside of me and I tell him so.

He rolls on top of me and slides himself inside and it feels delicious, but what I really want is to just feel him close to me. To feel him move inside of me, to hear his breathing get ragged next to my ear as I provide him this release . Even so, I can feel myself tighten again as he pushes a spot deep inside of me and I know he's focusing on me again. He keeps hitting that spot and I groan with each thrust feeling myself begin to clench around him. As if on cue he leans back and begins rubbing me until I feel something deep inside of me snap and I moan loudly as the sensation spreads throughout my body.

In response, Peeta groans and begins thrusting again his pace picking up and becoming slightly erratic. I run my hands across his shoulders, down his back, urging him into me. I can tell he's close, and soon I feel him swell and release inside of me. The tension leaves his body and he collapses on top of me his head cradled in the space between my neck and my collar bone. I run my hands through his hair tenderly waiting for him to collect himself. When he does he lifts his head and kisses me softly.

"I love you." I say as soon as he pulls away from the kiss before he can say it first. A smile pulls at his lips. "I love you so much." I continue and I can tell by the look of concern in his eyes that I am not doing a very good job at hiding my desperation.

"I love you too, Katniss." He says even as he pulls out of me and rolls onto his back. I curl up next to him running my hand along his chest and making little circles on his stomach as I try to find the words I want to say and failing miserably.

"Do you want to talk about today?" I ask tentatively.

"Not really." He replies neutrally.

"They're just rats. We can set traps or set Buttercup on them." I offer.

"I know." He says shortly and I can hear the scowl in his voice and tense slightly at the sharpness of his tone. He sighs and rolls over to hold me.

"Don't worry. I'll take care of it." He says and I nod, not willing to push any further.

The next morning I wake to an empty bed and a bad feeling that lingers from some nightmare I can't remember. Peeta's side of the bed is cold and I feel a particularly strong jab of loneliness that threatens to transform into something worse, so I force myself up and into my hunting gear to stave it off.

There's a kettle for tea and some muffins on the counter and my face lights up because this means that Peeta decided to stay home instead of go into the bakery today. When I look around for him he's nowhere to be found but the Studio door is closed and as I cautiously turn the handle to see if its locked I can hear him moving inside there again.

Frustration, anger, worry they all flash through me at the same time and I am momentarily seized with the compulsion to start pounding on the door, but I hold it in and decide to go talk to Haymitch instead. He's out on his back porch watching his geese when I come up and sit next to him.

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" He asks eyeing me warily.

"I'm worried about Peeta." I say holding my arms defensively.

"Yeah? Why's that?" He asks.

"I don't know. He's been closed off and angry and he keeps locking himself in his damn studio." I say bitterly. Haymitch raises his eyebrow and I scowl at the ground.

"Something happen to set him off?" Haymitch says after a time.

"He mentioned something about rats at the bakery." I answer. Haymitch grunts in response.

"Well, that explains it." He says. I glare at him.

"Explains what?" I snap. He fixes me with a scrutinizing look before leaning back and taking a swig from his ever present flask.

"Not my place to tell." he says with a shrug. "Just try to have some tact when you ask him about it, Sweetheart." I scoff in disgust and get up to leave. I know in my current state its not a good idea to go ask Peeta about a sensitive subject, so I go hunting instead trying to calm the intense irritation I feel at being out of the loop.

When I return around lunch time Peeta is still locked away and my anger flares. I am suddenly furious with him. At his betrayal of me. How dare he make me love him and then shut me out. I pound on the door demanding that he come out. I hear the door unlock and step back as he swings open the door.

"What are you doing?' He asks sharply irritation clearly written on is face.

"I'm tired of you shutting me out! I want you to tell me what is going on with you right now." I shout angrily at him. His face twists in annoyance.

"I told you I don't want to talk about it!" He counters back angrily turning to head back into the studio and panic seizes me. I dart into the room, crossing that unspoken threshold without his permission and stop short at the images before me. Dark and morbid depictions of what I can only imagine were his time in the Capitol fill my vision and I feel a bitter taste in the back of my throat. I hardly have time to look at any one of them closely before I feel his hand wrap around my arm roughly and he harshly yanks me out. I rip my arm away from him and glare even as tears start to blur my vision.

His face is obstinate and his eyes flash with ire, but I can't stop long enough to heed the warning before I'm yelling at him pushing him roughly so that he has to take a step back.

"It's not fair for you to shut me out! It's not fair!" I'm fairly sobbing now. "They're just rats, Peeta. They're just stupid rats!"

"It's not fair?" Peeta almost sneers. "You want to talk about fair?" He steps towards me menacingly his hands balled into tight fists and his jaw clenching. Fear and adrenaline surges through my body and I hardly notice Haymitch roughly pulling me back to stand between Peeta and I.

"Come on, Sweetheart" He says pulling me out of the house. I hear Peeta slam the studio door as we walk down the porch steps.

"What the hell are you doing?" Haymitch rounds on me. "I thought I told you to use some tact." But I hardly hear him. By now the possible consequences of my reckless behavior is beginning to crash down around me. What have I done? How could I have said those things to him? My body is shaking and I feel an intense desire to run back into the house to apologize to beg for his forgiveness and an equal impulse to run into the forest and never come back. Haymitch shakes me and forces me to look at him.

"Calm down and listen to me." I look at him and listen as he begins to explain. About the rats and Peeta. About Darius and Lavinia's dead bodies being left in his room for days as he, chained to the wall, was forced to sit there with them. Watching them grow stiff, then lax, emitting foul smells and bloating like bread dough until they burst. And the rats. Who had come to feast on the dead, skittering and squeaking as they gnawed on human flesh.

I feel sick. I feel rage. I feel shame. Haymitch is watching me closely with a foul look on his face.

"I didn't know." I say defensively. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"He doesn't want to talk about it, Katniss. Can you blame him?"

"But how am I supposed to help him?" My voice whines as I feel my throat constrict. Haymitch sighs.

"Look, maybe now you can. He never wanted to bring it up with you because of what happened in District 13. There's a dark side of him that he's never wanted to show you because the last time you saw him like that you disappeared."

"He almost killed me! He thought I was a mutt!" I say trying to defend my actions even though I know there was no excuse for what I'd done.

"I know that!" Haymitch snaps. "And he knows it too! But it doesn't change the fact that you ran away from him when he needed you the most."

"But things are different now. He didn't even give me a chance."

"Yeah Sweetheart?" Haymitch begins his voice laced with disgust. "Well neither did you."

I don't see Peeta for a few days. I take up residence in my old house, but I am not idle. I go to the bakery with Buttercup and my bow in tow and work with the staff to rid the bakery of every sign of vermin from the establishment. I shoot many of them myself feeling a thrill of satisfaction each time. When I am satisfied that they are all gone, I ask Haymitch to tell Peeta for me.

Peeta calls to talk and with trepidation I enter into our room. Peeta sits on the bed, his eyes red and puffy and begins to apologize, but I stop him with a kiss and then another until we are tangled together on the bed where our tears are mixed with promises. Promises never to leave and never to run. Promises to stay with one another no matter how difficult things are. 

Forever. 

Always.

**Author's Note:**

> I missed the cut off for the submission, so I thought I would post it up here instead. As always, I love to hear what you guys think!


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